《Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary – 1 Corinthians (Vol. 2)》(Various Authors)

09 Chapter 9

Verses 1-14

CRITICAL NOTES

1Co .—Notice the reversed order of clauses in the better-attested reading. Free.—I.c. quâ man; he is always Christ's "bondservant"; it is of his own choice that he submits to such limitations (1Co 9:19-22) upon his liberty as, e.g., in 1Co 8:13; or as this in question, that he should maintain himself by his manual labour, whereas he was also "free" to demand Church maintenance for himself if he had chosen. Apostle.—He had once been the Apostle (Sheliach, the Talmudic equivalent) of the Jewish authorities at Jerusalem to the synagogue in Damascus. [In this, etymological, sense and employment of the word Barnabas is called an apostle (Act 14:14). So the same popular, freer use derived from the Jewish practice lingers in 2Co 8:23 (of Luke and the bearers of the "collection"), in Php 2:25 (of Epaphroditus). The sense of "among the apostles" as including Andronicus and Junias (Rom 16:7) is very disputable, especially if the latter name be a woman's, "Junia."] Now a greater High Priest had sent him forth as His messenger and representative. For this the two needful qualifications were, to have had his commission direct from Christ's own lips ["I send thee" (Act 26:17), putting him on an equality with those who heard Him say, "Go ye therefore," etc. (Mat 28:19-20)], and to be able, at first hand, and not merely by hearsay or report of others, to assert as a fact within his own knowledge that the Crucified Christ was risen again and was then really living [putting Paul on the footing of Peter and the rest, who could say, Act 5:32; cf. Act 1:22 (very explicit); cf. 1Jn 1:1]. Important for us that the first link of the chain of historical evidence and testimony should be sound. [If indeed the uniqueness of the position of the apostles in their special selection, commission, and qualification for this testimony, out of the witnesses of 1Co 15:6, does not make them, not merely the first link, but the strong staple, holding the first link, and itself driven into the solid rock of the facts. The Apostolic company mediated between the Great Fact—the Living, Risen Christ—and the long succession of Christian teachers who must needs receive the truth on evidence of others (supported, indeed, by the subjective evidence of their experience of His working). My … in the Lord.—Observe how the second phrase guards, almost corrects, the first. [Cf. 1Co 16:23-24 : Christ's grace; my love.] No independent work; no success of his own. He has no wisdom, strength, success, except as his whole life is "in Christ"; and thus Christ wins the success and does the work through him. It is Christ's working and power; it is only a question which of the members of the Body He shall employ for any particular part of the great task, and to which shall be "credited" the particular share of the great total result.

1Co . To others.—Q.d. in their opinion, and by their recognition, "I am not." Notice "at least," R.V. seal.—As by-and-by his "crown" (Php 4:1), and, then and now, his "joy" (ib.). "At Corinth, at all events, there can be no doubt of the original validity of my commission, or whether it be still running and valid."

1Co . Answer.—Apologia, as, e.g., Act 22:1; 2Ti 4:16. A forensic word, like "examine," as, e.g., in Act 4:9; Act 24:8; Act 28:18; (1Co 4:3-5).

1Co . Power.—In the sense of "right"; so in 1Co 9:12, "to eat and to drink," q.d. at the expense of the Church.

1Co . Sister.—In the Christian sense, parallel to "brother" (1Co 5:11, etc.); "a wife" who is also a Christian "sister." The brethren of the Lord.—Three long-discussed, influentially sustained, theories:

(1) Children of Mary and Joseph, born after Jesus (the IIelvidian theory);

(2) Children of Joseph by a former wife (the Epiphanian);

(3) Cousins of Christ, children of Mary the sister of the Virgin, assumed also to be the wife of Alphus (Jerome's theory). Probably the data are insufficient for a sure conclusion, agreement in which would otherwise long ago have been arrived at.

(1) is unquestionably the most natural impression to be gathered from the Gospel history and from the word "brethren."

(2), and in a degree

(3), no doubt originated, or found a very strong motive for their propagation and acceptance, in a desire to save the "perpetual virginity" of Mary.

(1) accounts best for the prominence in the Church at Jerusalem of the James of Acts 15, and of Paul's Epistles. Cephas.—Mat . [Very precarious speculation has seen another touch of Peter's domestic life in 1Pe 5:13, and yet more precariously has made his wife the "elect lady" of 2 John, because of 1Pe 5:13, which is only "the elected one (fem.) at Babylon."]

1Co .—Barnabas was a rich landowner in Cyprus (Acts 4), and needed neither to work for his living nor to ask the Church to maintain him. If (with Bishop Lightfoot, Gal 2:11) we make Paul's rebuke of Barnabas's vacillation occur during Act 15:30-40, they may have started together with a "soreness" which made Barnabas (or both of them) tenderly irritable, and helped to the "quarrel" (so-called) about John Mark. This the earliest mention of Barnabas by Paul after the separation. [The spirit of even this passing mention may be paralleled by John Wesley's persistent kindness of thought and speech to and about Whitefield, after their separation over the Calvinist controversy.]

1Co .—Matters little whether the master or the employé in the vineyard, the owner or only the hired shepherd, be intended. Probably the former. As to the soldier, note the R.V.

1Co . As a man—Found in Rom 3:5 (cf. 1Co 6:19); 1Co 3:3; 1Co 9:8; 1Co 15:32 (Gal 1:11, plur.), 1Co 3:15; "after man," as a pattern or norm, but with varying shades of meaning. Here: "According to the sense of what is right, customary amongst men." Not only does the common judgment of mankind bear him out in his contention, but God has delivered His mind also.

1Co .—"Deu 25:4, quoted also in 1Ti 5:8, is very conspicuous for its unexpected, sudden, and momentary reference to cattle amid matter quite different" (Beet). [But the whole chapter looks like a succession of legislative dicta, "entered up" in the statute-book with no order or connection beyond that of their succession of actual enactment as the occasion arose.] An instance carrying a far-reaching principle in regard to the interpretation of the Old Testament. If some enactments seem vague, impracticable, trivial, or even minutely vexatious, "unworthy of the attention of such a Book and of God," we may say:

1. A trivial case may carry a great principle.

2. Some simple precepts have large analogical meanings when transferred to spiritual things.

3. The y prs principle applies here, as in all legislation which is affected by changing circumstances.

4. Only fair to the Bible to bring in common sense, to explain or apply, as in ordinary life. True order of thought, in this and all similar instances, is not up from the temporary, "trivial" case to the higher spiritual analogy, but down from this to the lower and Jesser. In this small enactment we are touching a widely applicable principle of the Divine order, in a very lowly, temporary embodiment. N. B.—This "law of Moses" is also what "God saith."

1Co . Our sakes' altogether.—Not denying the early, lower intention of God, who does, in this passage, "take care for oxen." Similar to "I have loved Jacob, and hated Esau"; or rather to "I will have mercy, and not sacrifice"; where evidently the negation is not absolute, but comparative, in its force. Our.—Hardly to be narrowed to mean only Christian ministers. Note the change of reading, and of consequent rendering. "Partaker of his hope" meant, "Enjoying the reward he hoped for as he laboured." This also a general principle, not specialised until 1Co 9:11; 1Co 9:14, but a point of Divine "political economy," which should be embodied in (say) the relations between capital and labour.

1Co .—Cf. 2Co 11:12.

1Co .—Stanley sees in this resumed argumentation, and in the reiteration in 1Co 9:14 of what had been said in 1Co 9:11, the probable sign of a resumption of the letter after some pause. [As perhaps a change of amanuensis, or a new morning's work. Cf. 2Co 10:1. He presses also "I wrote," in 1Co 9:15.] Lev 6:16; Lev 6:26; Num 18:8-19. See in connection with 1Co 8:1.

1Co . The Lord Christ hath ordained.—Mat 10:9 sq., Luk 10:7 are quoted [not necessarily from written Gospels] as in 1Co 7:10.

HOMILETIC ANALYSIS.—1Co

The Support of a Stipendiary Ministry.

I. What the minister has a right (1Co ) to expect from his people.—Maintenance (1Co 9:14). This right rests upon:

(1) The natural fitness and "right" of the case (1Co ; 1Co 9:11-12);

(2) The Old Testament legislation (1Co ), definitely endorsed and adopted in

(3) The words of Christ (1Co ).

II. What the people have a claim to expect from the minister.—

(1) That he have all needful credentials (1Co );

(2) That he do his work; he actually "preaches the Gospel" (1Co ).

III. What Christ has a right to expect from His servant.—That in claiming, or enforcing, or using his "right" he shall not "hinder" his Master's Gospel.

I. The central verse of this section is 1Co . All turns around this.

1. To some ears the "rights of the ministry" has an ugly sound. The minister is often expected to be above such considerations, and to let nothing be heard from himself but how he feels the call of his "duties" press upon him. So he does, if he be a minister worthy the name. He comes into the ministry with a "woe" in his ears, as the penalty of any alternative course. He preaches to his people—rich and poor—that Rights mean Duties. The poor need to have this preached to them as certainly as the rich. But Duties also mean Rights. If the "call" of Christ and His Church be such as to indicate that he must make the ministry the one business of his life, then he must be maintained whilst he is fulfilling his "calling."

2. Paul is discussing the case of the Apostolate. It was no doubt a unique order of men, charged with a function for the Church of their own time, and for the Church of all time, which cannot be repeated by any other set of men, and never needs to be repeated. Once for all they have set Christian dogma upon the firm basis of History. (See Critical Notes.) But the analogy holds good, in this particular matter, between the case of these unique and extraordinary servants of Christ and of the Churches and the ordinary ministry. The inspired and authoritative declaration of 1Co —whether paraphrased from, e.g., Mat 10:9, or a divinely guaranteed report of an unwritten word of Christ (similar to the case of Act 20:35)—generalises the application of the principle.

3. The "ordinance" of Christ foresaw, took account of, provided against, a separated ministry. The Body of Christ has simply, and from the necessity of the case,—a necessity recurring in connection with every growing, enlarging, organisation whatsoever,—followed the analogy—"the law"—of all organised structures in Nature. As complexity increases, as the demands of the organisation multiply and are differentiated, so the organs which meet the demands are multiplied, and become specialised in their function and faculty. The specialisation of work and of officials in the Body began in Acts 4, when the apostles ceased to attempt to do everything in the Church, and "Deacons" (so-called) were told off to a special portion of what had been included in their work. A simple Church, independent of organised fellowship, of small numbers, of simple requirement, may reproduce the early simplicity of pastoral and official organisation. But as it grows, and, above all, if a system of grouped, affiliated, connexionalised, organised Churches comes to form a new Church, it becomes a matter of expedient division of labour to set apart a pastorate, who will need, and should give, a whole and undivided attention to the teaching and "ruling" needed by the enlarged work and community.

4. "A paid ministry" is a theory and a practice which may reasonably be criticised and objected to; but a "sustained, supported ministry" is a necessity of the case. The man must "live" of the Gospel; not "starve" or "struggle" upon it. His "flock" should do their utmost to see that the shepherd is not the worst fed of them all; they should set him free from need and care. And 1Co enlarges the range of this principle of necessary, suitable support. "Life" is not merely food, clothes, house, bed, books, cut down to a minimum of possibility. A "living" is not merely what will keep the man himself out of want. The apostle, or his ministerial successor, is a man, for all he has been called into, thrust into, office. In all ordinary conditions full, all-round manhood means marriage, a "wife," a home, perhaps children. Celibacy like Paul's, should always be the exceptional thing, and never compulsory. It has cut off the ministry from the manhood of the Church, in regard to the sympathy which comes from, and only by, experience. It has morally been a snare to the ministry itself, and often a curse to the community. The "fork" of rigid ecclesiastical legislation cannot "expel Nature" from the man, merely because his work becomes specialised, and he himself is separated in order to do it the more effectively. The "recurrence" and the revolt of outraged Nature have often been disastrous, and full of disgrace, to the Christian, and the ministerial, name. The man, though made a minister by the expediency and the necessity of circumstances, has the "right to lead about a wife"; to have his own home, with its solace and its support. And the "living" covers the needful, suitable provision for this also. His "right" is "authority." His Lord authorises him to requisition his support from his people. This "right" is manifestly in accord with: